A Crowded Marriage (17 page)

“Right,” I gulped. “Okey-doke.” I cranked up a smile. “Marvellous.”
We'll
come—Christ, there were about twenty of them now that she'd collected what looked like half the school. Yes, absolutely marvellous, I thought, my palms sweaty now as Rufus and I walked wretchedly to our car, Little Harrington's answer to the Von Trapp family trooping along behind us, a million amused eyes boring into our backs. I couldn't look at Rufus. Just couldn't.

“D'you want to follow me?” I asked brightly as I opened the driver's door.

“Oh, we ain't got a car,” said the mother, as she stood, looking at ours. I licked my lips. No car. Right. “Well, I'm not sure I've got enough seat belts to—”

“Nah, we don't want seat belts. They'll just pile in the back. Jason! Paula! Get the baby, and Darren and Jasmine, you get in the boot wiv' the little uns. Tanya, get the twins out of that buggy. Come on, look lively.”

And they did just that. Piled in. All twelve of them—I counted—squashed in any old how, on laps, in the boot, faces squashed against windows, looking like a family of illegal immigrants trying to make it across the border.

“Well, I hope we don't meet a policeman,” I twittered nervously, a muscle going in my face. “Because I have a feeling it's against the law. And I haven't a clue where you're going to sit because Rufus absolutely
has
to have a—”

“'Ere, come on, little 'un. On my lap.”

She'd plonked herself down in the front seat and scooped a startled Rufus effortlessly with her arm, into her vast lap. His nose was about six inches from the windscreen.

“Perhaps if you put the belt around both of you,” I squeaked.

“Won't reach,” she assured me without even trying, although admittedly she was probably right. I wasn't convinced it would encircle her
without
Rufus on her lap. “Anyway, our Ron's the local bobby. He'll turn a blind eye. Come on you, get in.”

Thinking she was talking to me I hastily obeyed, but she was addressing the Alsatian, hauling him in on his string, somehow getting him past her well-upholstered legs to lodge him between us. He stood with his front paws on my handbrake, panting heavily into my face, jaws wide, tongue lolling, saliva dripping.

“Good boy,” I breathed, shrinking back.

“She's a bitch,” growled my new best friend.

“Oh, I'm sure she's n—Oh. I see.”

Nervously, I burrowed around amongst the furry feet, found the handbrake, and let it out. Without the brake for support, though, the dog lurched forward on to my knees. As I crawled down the road, the best part of an enormous hairy dog lying in my lap, a wet nose in my crutch, I prayed. Please God, let us get there in one piece. Please don't let tomorrow's headline's read, “Mother's Vitals Mauled by Alsatian as She Drove Car of Fifteen.”

I drove at a snail's pace, my eyes glued to the road, only leaving it occasionally to monitor the progress of my son's nose, which periodically jerked alarmingly towards the windscreen as she swung around to clout her recalcitrant brood.

“Shauna! Pack it in!” Or: “Ryan! Shut it!”

Finally we reached the cottage and they all piled out, in an eclectic jumble, on to the grass. As they picked themselves up and gazed around, getting their bearings and taking in the unfamiliar surroundings, I went on to the cottage and opened the door. After only a moment's hesitation, the ones that were mobile ran through the front door and on up the stairs to check out Rufus's bedroom. Happily, he did have a PlayStation, and a football table, I thought, pressing myself against the wall as they thundered past me, plus a lovely wooden fort with proper lead soldiers whose lives I feared for, but no matter.

I ran around getting the tea as my new friend—Sheila, she informed me—proceeded to change a brace of filthy nappies on the kitchen floor. She dealt with them in seconds flat, making me wonder why on earth changing mats had ever been invented, pausing only to suck a dummy that had fallen on the floor and got dusty and replace it in a baby's mouth, whilst with the other hand, extracting a toddler from inside a cupboard where it was rearranging my china, and all the time punctuating proceedings with, “Leave it, Darren,” or, “Touch that and I'll knock your block off, Lorraine!” She was like the old woman who lived in the shoe, except that the shoe was my house.

As I arranged the tea things on the table, she sat up on her haunches and looked up at it doubtfully. “Wha's this then?”

“It's a hot cheese sauce,” I said brightly. “You dip bits of carrot and celery and bread in. Rufus loves it.”

She got to her feet and picked up a bit of cauliflower in wonder. “They won't eat this. Got any chips?”

I had, as it happened, in a bag in the freezer, which I produced nervously. “Yes, but I'm not convinced these will go with the—”

“Give it here.”

She took it from me, waddled across to the oven, found a tray, then shook the entire bag, literally hundreds of chips, on to it, and shut the door.

“Right,” I gulped. “Good idea.”

All hell appeared to be breaking loose upstairs judging by the noise, and it occurred to me to wonder if Rufus was still alive. Had they chucked him out of the window? Was he being dangled out, even now, by his shiny Start-rites? I didn't know, and what's more, I didn't know what I was more afraid of: that, or the look on his face if I went up and found him sitting mutely in the midst of his chaotic bedroom, watching the anarchy. With shaking hands, I lit the fondue.

“Tea time!” I warbled up the stairs, and moments later, a stampede engulfed me.

When I'd peeled myself off the stairwell wall, I tottered to the kitchen to find that, somehow, they'd all got around my tiny table: on stools, on counters, two to a chair, on an upturned milk crate, or just plain standing. They fell on their chips greedily, then gazed in wonder as Rufus solemnly dunked cherry tomatoes and chunks of bread into the bubbling sauce.

For a while they just chomped away in silence, but in time it became hard to resist, and the oldest boy, Ryan, a disreputably handsome lad of about twelve, plonked a chip in with a giggle. The others watched in awestruck silence as he chewed. Eventually, he pronounced a verdict.

“'S orright,” he declared grudgingly.

There was no stopping them then. Chips were dunked in by the fistful as I steadied a precarious bowl of bubbling cheese, then Ryan picked up a bit of celery.

“Wha's this then?”

“Celery.” I eyed him. “I dare you.”

“Yeah? What ya gonna give me?”

“50p.”

“A pound.”

“Done.”

He looked taken aback, but gamely dunked his celery in.

“Yeah, 's orright too.” He crunched away. “Where's my pound?”

I reached in my bag and handed it over.

“Can I still have some more, though?” he asked warily, picking up another piece of celery.

“Course you can.”

“Can I?” asked Tanya.

“Of course.” Feeling rather flushed and elated, I cut up some more for the others, who naturally also wanted to try.

“You won't like that,” Ryan advised them all. “It's too s'phisticated. You might like the carrot, though.”

Well, of course they all wanted to be sophisticated, and after that, tea disappeared in a flash. Out of the corner of my eye I caught Sheila, giving a baby a bottle on a stool in the corner, looking impressed. She sat the baby up on her knee and rubbed her back, burping her efficiently, then jerked her head outside.

“Who looks after the stock, then?”

“The stock? Oh, you mean the cows. I do.”

“Yeah?” She went to the open back door, jiggling the baby across her arm. “And all them Jacobs. They're 'is majesty's, are they?” She nodded.

Jacobs. This girl knew her stuff. “Yes, that's right,” I said, picking up an already assembled tray of tea and biscuits. She moved aside as I went through the door and set it on the little table in the garden. “They belong to Piers.” I sat down to pour. “D'you know the Latimers then?”

She followed me out, sat down heavily opposite me and made a face. “Everyone round here knows the Latimers. They own half the village. Me mum cleans for them, don't she?”

“Vera?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, so you're
Vera's
daughter. Oh, Vera and I are like that!” I beamed and held up two crossed fingers, hoping to ingratiate myself.

She gave me a sharp look, and it occurred to me that she might know if her mother and I were joined at the hip.

“Does she enjoy working for them?” I rushed on, handing her a mug of tea.

She looked suspicious, and I realised that job satisfaction might not be high on Vera's priorities. The job was there, she needed it, she got on with it. “'S all right, I s'pose. She's bin there twenty years so what's the difference? Mum says
she's
all right, but he's a funny one.”

“Piers?”

“Yeah, Piers. I wouldn't want to be married to him for all 'is money. Can't say I blame her neither, though there are some round 'ere say she should know better.”

“Who, Eleanor?”

“Yeah.”

“Blame her for what? Know better than—”

But Sheila's tantalising observations on the Latimer ménage were cut short as she got to her feet, pink with fury and pointed her finger accusingly at the bushes.

“CINDY! GET THAT COCK OUT OF YOUR MOUTH—NOW!”

My eyes bulged in horror, my tea-cup rattled. Lordy. What on earth was going on? Who was Cindy in the bushes with?
Where was Rufus?

Sheila bustled away at the double and it was with some relief that I saw her emerge moments later from the undergrowth, wrestling the Black Rock cockerel from the jaws of the Alsatian. The cockerel gave an angry squawk and bustled away indignantly, minus a few feathers and some pride, but otherwise intact. Sheila, though, was distraught. She whipped a piece of binder twine from her pocket, put it round the dog's neck, and dragged her back to the chair to tie her up.

“She ain't used to chickens,” she panted, her face pink, “not free range like that, at any rate.”

“Don't worry,” I soothed, “he'll live. So, um, Eleanor. I mean, Mrs. Latimer. She can't be blamed for—”

“She's more than likely never seen 'em runnin' wild before. Specially not a great big cock like that.”

“No. No, it is a big one. But, um, the Latimers—”

“An' she's used to chasing birds, see. Never catches 'em, like, not quick enough, like the cat, but these great big chickens, well, that's different. It's like pheasants, innit?
Bad
girl, Cindy!” She admonished her, tugging hard on the string.

“Honestly, it couldn't matter less,” I assured her.

“Yeah, but it's best we go,” she said nervously, draining her tea and getting to her feet. “Before we do any more damage. Don't want Mr. Latimer counting his chickens. I'll be shot. I'll get the kids rounded up.”

“Honestly, there's no need—”

But she was already marching around the garden, yelling like a sergeant major, calling the children to heel, and I realised it was going to be neither decently nor indecently possible to steer the conversation back to Eleanor again. I got to my feet with a resigned sigh and followed her. Most of the children were in the orchard with the lambs, where Rufus was proudly showing Tanya how to pick one up, explaining how a little orphaned one would drink from a bottle with a bit of persuasion. I had to admit, it was a something of a sylvan scene and I leaned on the fence, looking on proudly.

“Me granddad had all this,” said Sheila, joining me at the fence and nodding around as we watched. Ryan was getting involved too now, taking the lamb from Rufus's arms. “Tenant farmer, like. Up Pasterton way. Never 'ad 'is own land, but we grew up there. An' it's good for them, isn't it? The kiddies?”

“It certainly is,” I agreed as we watched one of the toddlers stagger across the orchard, an enormous nappy between his knees, and squat down to turn his face up inquisitively to a tiny lamb.

“You've got yer 'ands full,” she observed, glancing round at all the animals.

“Not as full as yours,” I jerked my head at her brood. She laughed. “Yeah, but only five are mine. We foster the rest.”

“Foster? Really?”

“Yeah, an' we don't do it for the money, neiver.” She looked at me sharply. “We get sweet FA from Social.”

“I wouldn't dream of suggesting you did.”

“Well, there's some round here would, and they want to try cutting a hundred fingernails at bath time an' getting all them teeth brushed. They'd soon realise a few measly quid ain't worth it.”

“I quite agree,” I said with feeling. “I find it hard enough coping with just one.”

“And they're good kids, anyhow,” she reflected. “Just 'aven 't much of a chance, you know? Up to now.”

I nodded. Yes, I did know. And she was giving them one. Twelve children in all, and all in a tiny house, no doubt full to the brim with baskets of washing and ironing and pants and socks drying on every radiator, Sheila working her butt off. I felt humbled as she gathered them all together now with what I realised was a lot of good-natured shouting, which the children took in their stride. And God, I'd yell if I had all those, I thought. Shriek, more like. I watched her herd them together, getting as many as possible to come up and say good-bye and thank you. Sheila declined a lift back to the village, saying she only lived across the valley and hadn't realised where we were otherwise they'd have walked. Then, with two in the double buggy, another two riding pillion on the back and Ryan pushing all four, she scooped two little ones up in her arms and herded the rest across the meadow, down into the valley, and up the other side. The two boys on the back of the buggy jumped off and helped Ryan push it uphill, and Rufus and I shaded our eyes into the setting sun and watched them go. When they got to the top of the hill, Sheila got them all to turn round and wave. We waved back frantically.